Unleash the Beast

Sample · 1

Chapter One – The Locked RoomRain hammered the windows of Greywood Orphanage, rattling them in their warped frames. The building groaned with every gust, as though it were alive and didn’t like the storm. The roof leaked in three places. The wallpaper peeled in curling strips. But to Ethan, it was still better than the streets he’d been on before coming here.Mrs. Wren, the matron, was a tall, thin woman with hair like steel wool and a voice that could cut glass. She had rules for everything—no running in the halls, no whispering after lights out, and above all, never go into the attic’s far end.Her warning about the attic came with a rare flash of real fear in her eyes.“Some doors keep you safe by staying closed,” she said once, catching him staring at the bolted door up there.The attic itself was a labyrinth of dusty trunks and forgotten furniture, a graveyard for the past. But at the far end stood that door—thick wood, three iron locks, and strange carvings that didn’t match the rest of the house.Ethan’s mind worked like a clock, turning over puzzles until they clicked. And this was the biggest puzzle he’d ever seen.“Why would someone lock a room with three different locks?” he whispered to himself one day while dusting the attic. “And what’s so dangerous that Mrs. Wren looks scared just talking about it?”The question stuck in his head like a splinter. He promised himself he wouldn’t touch it. But sometimes promises bend under the weight of curiosity. And in Greywood, curiosity didn’t just kill the cat—it might open the wrong door.

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